


A Winning Smile

by Capucine



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker - Freeform, Brother Feels, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Protectiveness, Psychological Torture, Torture, Young Justice Setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:09:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5040709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the events of Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker concerning Tim Drake happen in the Young Justice universe, it will leave the Bat Family reeling. Batman is not on hand after the event, and it's up to Dick, Barbara, and Alfred to set Tim right again.</p><p>But what if things just go from bad to worse? What if there's more at play than they know, and what if Tim can't be fixed?</p><p>A different take on the whole Joker Junior thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gah. I was working on this for weeks when I had writer's block. 
> 
> Basically, a number of differences and a lot more focus on recovery than the movie (and well, it was a movie, only so much space). All I gotta say is, poor Tim...

A month.

An entire month, without any sign or contact. Nothing, not a clue, not a trace.

Dick knew that Tim was in serious trouble, and had not stopped looking. Not after Jason. Not after anything that had happened to people he cared about.

Of course, Batman, Barbara, they'd been searching just as hard, just as long, and Young Justice was sweeping anywhere they could think of. Gotham had been moved on from reluctantly, on to Metropolis, New York, anywhere that could be suspected of wanting to kidnap Tim.

He couldn't count the bones broken, the noses smashed, the things threatened, in Batman's desperate search for Tim. He didn't want to, as unorthodox as this search was.

He was up there breaking bones with him, a frantic pulse in his veins.

Tim had to be all right. He had to be safe, simply laying low for whatever reason.

There had to be a reason, but in his heart, he knew it wasn't true. Jason may have been found within the day (too late, far too late), but that didn't mean that Tim was all right. It didn't mean there wasn't a body they simply hadn't found yet.

But he hoped against it all that Tim had survived, had found a way, was simply beyond their reach for the moment and they would find him any day now.

And they did.

Or, rather, they found the clue, an outright _invitation_ , to Tim.

The Bat family shunned all outside help in this matter—but they maintained radio contact. They agreed to send a signal if things got too dangerous.

Because this invitation? It was a playing card—the joker card. With an address scrawled on it.

Dick and Barbara were to hang back—the place was discovered to be an old, abandoned asylum—abandoned back in the sixties, when President Kennedy disbanded most of them.

The place stank of mold and decay, from the backrooms where Dick and Barbara had crept. They made it to the main area, the operating theater—and there was a scene that made Dick grit his teeth, keeping his anger under control as he watched Batman enter it.

Harley Quinn stood by a table, which had a gingham table cloth over it and flowers in the center. The whole place was made up like a typical living area, albeit a little stereotypically 1950's.

“Where is Robin?” Batman growled.

Harley Quinn, like she couldn't sense danger, grinned over at the dark corner where a figure sat smoking a pipe in a plush armchair. “Puddin'! We got company!” she sing-songed.

And Joker himself rose from that corner, wearing that horrible purple suit and taking his pipe from his lips. He let out a puff of smoke, then put it out. “Aw, Batman! We were hoping for company—it's been so lonely, but you know how that is when a family's just been—well, you know.”

That grin was on his face, that one that said, 'See, I've taken another tiny-Batman-in-training, just wait until you see'.

Dick wanted so badly to kill him. His hand was clenched around a wing-ding (his version of the batarang), and he could see Barbara's face was tense, like she desperately wanted to do the same thing. But they held their ground, like Batman wanted.

“Where is Robin?” Batman said, more threateningly. The tone spoke of broken bones or even death for refusing him this information.

Mock confusion flitted across their faces, the clown couple, as they looked at each other.

“'Robin?' There's no one by that name here,” Joker said, face contorted in an infuriating mockery of bemusement.

“You don't think he could mean our sweet Little Jay, do you?” Harley Quinn said, as if this was a weird mistake to make. 

“Ah, of course!” Joker smirked over at Batman, but carried on with the show. “Bats, you know we're not getting any younger; this back and forth is wonderful and all, but what are we going to leave the world?”

“That old clock's a ticking!” Harley said brightly, patting her stomach.

“Yes, that it is, Harls,” Joker said, giving what could have been construed as an affectionate look. “I decided it was time to pass on my legacy.”

The dread in Dick's stomach was increasing. It couldn't be. Whatever they had done, it had to be bad, very bad...

Some small part of him hoped that Tim was not involved at all, that that had just been a lure. Tim was out there, still alive but not here. 

“But rather than go through the _joys_ of childbirth,” Harley said, a note of discontent in her voice, “we decided to adopt.”

“You know, Bats, it's very difficult to adopt _legally_ when you've got a small rap sheet like ours,” Joker said, “But then we remembered: you've always got a bunch of extra brats hanging around. We figured we'd borrow one...”

Batman's entire body was tense, like a spring pushed down and about to burst forward.

“Jay! Come out here, to Momma, sweetie!” Harley called out.

Dick tensed, worse than he already was, and he could feel the same from Barbara.

The curtain to the back, which was an ugly purple, shifted out of the way of a figure...

It was Tim. But it was not Tim.

His skin was bleached white, his mouth stretched, cut wider, in a blood red grin, his body skinny and trembling, his hair altered to green and scraggly—and his eyes. They were dead, staring at the world like they didn't recognize even a bit of what was going on.

Dick thought he couldn't be more horrified—until an eery, broken giggle came out of Tim's throat.

“My god...” he could hear Barbara breathe out.

“Come to Momma!” Harley chirped out, and Tim walked towards her staggeringly, like this was the thing to do, like she actually was his Momma in some macabre world.

“Jay jr., say hello to Mr. Batman!” Joker cackled, and then burst out into his full, mad laugh.

Batman roared, tackling the Joker.

That was Dick and Barbara's signal. They both leapt from the balcony they'd been hidden on, him shouting to Barbara, “Get Harley, I'll get Tim!”

It was funny, the different meanings of 'get' in those statements, but nothing was really funny right now.

Barbara was promptly knocked back by what appeared to be a boxing glove—but one attached to what could be considered a low grade missile.

Harley patted the rocket launcher, saying, “Mommy's little helper! Jay, get the nasty man with the blue!”

He didn't expect Tim to turn around with a gun, a gun of all things, if he had a gun, why wasn't he attacking the psychopaths? But Tim pointed the gun at him, a giggle erupting from his throat, a nervous sound that seemed to saw its way out of his throat.

“Tim! Stop, it's me, it's Dick!” Dick shouted, and Tim hadn't pulled the trigger, not yet, one eye closed for aim and the other glassy and looking near rolling into the back of his head.

Dick held his hands out; they'd had some training on how to deal with trauma victims, but this was...not only a special case, but personal. He walked slowly towards his brother, saying softly, “It's all right, Tim. It's all right; Babs and I are here to bring you home—you're safe now, I promise.”

“Jay, shoot him, or Momma's gonna get angry!” Harley snapped, and instantly the bullet was fired.

Hitting someone with a bullet was harder than one might think, and in Tim's state, his aim was pretty shot. Still, Dick threw himself to the floor, shouting, “Tim, no! Stop!”

Tim hesitated, confusion evident on his face. He let out a strangled noise, a sort of worry-but-more-than-worry evident in the sound.

Harley had reached him, and she stroked his hair, murmuring, “Good boy, Jay! Now shoot at the bad man again!”

He shot again, and thank god, missed again.

Dick knew then he had better rush him, because Tim probably wasn't going to miss forever. Barbara came running up then, however, and went flying into Harley Quinn. “Get out of the way, Quinn!”

Harley let out a shriek, a rather startled sound, and Tim was left standing there, a hopeless, confused expression on his face. It was like his eyes were not seeing Dick at all, but rather some mysterious entity that could have been there to hurt him. He turned the gun towards Dick once more.

Dick tackled him. He silently asked for forgiveness for doing so, having never thought he would have to fight Tim, or even really be rough with him. 

Tim screamed, and he still had some training, slamming an elbow into Dick's collarbone.

It didn't break. However, when he got his knee up and into Dick's stomach, _that_ was enough to nearly make Dick lose his lunch. Shockingly, even as weakened as he looked, he still remembered a lot of basic combat stuff.

Dick was temporarily knocked off, or so he thought.

“Baby, get Momma's _special_ tool! Go go, good boy!” Harley sang out, dodging Barbara.

Tim was up and running before Dick got the chance to stop him. He lurched horribly, like one of his legs was somehow damaged, and despite the purple shorts in his utterly-horrifying Joker-lookalike suit, it was hard to tell where he was hurt.

“Tim, wait!”

He was running after him, but was sidelined by a big boxing glove projectile; he slammed into the seating, and his head rang dizzily. By the time he was back, not a long span, the fighting had stilled: Harley, Barbara and Tim were nowhere to be seen.

But, there was suddenly a reel playing, projected onto a large screen.

It was black and white, but unfortunately crystal clear—and clearly Tim.

There was sound, and he could see Batman transfixed.

There was Tim, strapped to an old-fashioned operating table—the kid was giving it all he had, straining against the straps like his life depended on it. And it sort of did.

Tim knew the guidelines: when captured, try to escape. If you can't, try to avoid harm. And if you can't do that, try to stay alive.

He could hear Tim making small growling noises and grunts, but not a word.

Chillingly, Joker was in this movie too, but he had on what appeared to be typical wear for a barbecue. He smiled at the camera, then strode over to a grill—the old-fashioned kind. He licked his lips, giving a look to the camera as if to tell them how juicy the burgers would be. But of course, they weren't burgers when he lifted the lid—they were clamps. The kind that would be used to jumpstart a car or something.

One was attached to each side of the unfortunately metal table, as Joker made some joke about getting comfortable—Tim's breaths quickened, but to his credit, he didn't start begging, crying, or screaming.

The electricity sent his body rigid, no sound, but when the electricity stopped—that was when the gasping began, the never-hurt-this-much-before sounds of him trying to contain his fear and pain.

Joker's cackling was maddening, but it wasn't over—it was far from over.

“Little birdie, so far from Daddy...but don't worry, you won't even care about him soon enough!” The Joker approached the table with a syringe, some liquid clearly inside it.

Tim went stiff, saying, voice unintentionally filled with fear, “What is that?! What is it?!”

“It's just to calm you down—and loosen you up! Can't have my new son all worked up over memories of his _abusive_ family, can I?” Joker said.

Tim snapped, eyes clearly wide with horror, “I'm not your son! I'll never be your son!”

The needle sank into his arm, as he let out a hiss. Joker smiled wider, stroking back his hair from his face. “Don't worry, Jay! We'll make it all better, you won't even remember what they've done to you!”

“Batman—Nightwing, they'll come! They'll find me, you won't get to--”

“Ah, my poor little Jay. It's okay, they're never going to take you away from your new, loving family, I promise. You're safe here, at last,” Joker grinned, an affectation at looking empathetic to his 'son's' plight only very badly playing across his face.

“Stop calling me Jay, that's not my name!” Tim seemed to positively scream, thrashing again in his bonds.

But that fight, or at least, the physical ability to carry it on, disappeared soon. As his mask was peeled off, they could see his eyes looking at the camera in terror, something of pleading in them, as though Harley might be convinced not to let this happen. When Joker approached with a knife, it was all Dick could do not to lose it right then.

It was screaming, obviously slurred and affected by the drug, followed by muted weeping, and then Tim had a smile as wide as the Joker's.

Joker stood next to him, grinning. “Look, Junior got Daddy's smile!”

The rest of the film was agonizing, snippets of probably Tim's worst moments: more electricity, more drugs, a broken Tim sobbing and pleading to be left alone—the days were numbered at this point, and on day twenty, a Tim whose eyes could not focus, were darting all over the place like he was having a seizure, mumbled out secrets that only the Bat family should know.

All their identities. Weaknesses. Anything and everything the Joker asked—and all kinds of inane details that had nothing to do with anything. 'Yeah—black coffee—Dick—black coffee, please, I don't—sugar, that's Babs--'

His skin was bleached, a painful process that had him screaming in pain—his leg was pulled until the hip was displaced, the one time he struggled free of the straps and crawled on the floor, head bobbing and swaying like he wasn't sure if the floor was moving under him.

He begged for Bruce, for Dick, for Barbara—even begged for his own mother. Until the words simply stopped, his eyes stopped looking for ways out or analyzing what was there, his body stopped resisting the straps.

And all along, with all this, Harley was...being what she would probably call tender, but what Dick would call sexual assault. Tim screamed, cried, more than once under her hands, early on, but she just pressed a kiss against his face, and murmured about 'Momma will make it all better, don't worry, Jay'.

It ended with a completely transformed Tim, sitting on the floor and clicking two action figures together mindlessly, as Harley busily put a pie on their table, and the Joker leaned around the camera and gave an approximation of a 'look at my happy family' smile.

It was bone-chilling.

Dick wanted to throw up, knowing what they'd seen was only a fraction of what Tim had gone through in a month. A month could be made through, under torture—but only under the circumstances of more regular torture. Torture intended to get information, torture that couldn't afford to completely destroy the victim quite yet. Torture fully intended to completely destroy his mind...a month was an eternity too long.

“You'd be so proud, Batsy,” Joker's voice rang out. “He fought so hard in the beginning. It was his own heroics that got him caught, you know—rescued Harley from 'muggers.' Didn't stop to think the poor woman might be about to brain him! Ha!”

Dick clenched his fists. Using Tim's own heroism against him—it was sick, it was diabolical.

“But now, I know everything. And you, Batman—or should I say, Brucey?--are just a sad little kid, crying for Mommy and Daddy. It'd be pretty funny if it weren't so pathetic. Oh, what the hell, I'll laugh anyway.” And Joker burst into full on laughter.

Batman moved fast, breaking into the projection room through the glass.

Dick knew that it was more important that he find Tim, as much as he wanted to kill the clown. He had to make the choice between harming Joker and saving Tim—Tim would always win out against such a thing.

He ran down the operating room, into the halls—just as he entered the courtyard, which had gaping openings into basement levels below, he heard a scream, and somehow managed to run faster.

He saw Barbara leaning over one of the edges, a pinched, sorrowful look on her face. She saw Dick quickly, and said, “Harley Quinn—she just—she fell.”

That was a deep drop, not something that Dick wanted to dwell on right then. “Come on. We don't have time, we have to find Tim!”

They crept through the crunching concrete, lots of it crumbled from age. Dick listened intently for signs of Tim, for any indication that he was around. What if he had left? What if he was roaming beyond the asylum, utterly unable to fend for himself or recognize reality?

But then there was the scrape of shoes against the concrete, and he and Babs instinctually went around the ugly old hedges that Tim seemed to be behind, one on each side.

Dick saw him first, hands shaking as he clutched what must have been 'Momma's special tool'-- a pink tazer, the kind that was pretty high-grade and could very well knock someone out—or kill them. He was holding it rather like it was a precious item, something that he couldn't afford to have something happen to. He also held it like he didn't know how to use it, thank god.

Dick approached slowly, seeing Barbara from behind. “Tim,” Tim started, turning towards him. “It's all right. It's your brother, Dick, okay? You're okay. You're safe now.”

Tim started giggling again, that eery sound that could only be described as giggling but sounded really nothing like it. In fact, it was a rather horrifying approximation. He limped back when Dick took another step towards him, but any step back only took him closer to Barbara.

The boy's hands shook violently, as his glassy eyes stared at Dick, trying to figure it out. Trying so hard to understand what was going on.

“Hey. Hey, Tim, it's okay, it's me, I swear you're safe. No one's going to hurt you, okay?” Dick said, as gently as possible. 

When he got within three feet of Tim, who hadn't moved to run yet, Tim cringed back, letting out a wordless sound of distress, pleading. It disturbed Dick greatly that he hadn't spoken at all, that he continued to make the occasional noise and that was it.

“It's okay, Timmy,” he said softly, using the name that he hadn't in years for his youngest brother. He reached out, put a hand on Tim's shoulder.

Tim startled badly, and swung the tazer at him—but Dick was prepared, and caught his arm. He pulled Tim into a tight hug, which made the boy struggle for a moment, and then start to cry softly. It erupted into full sobs quickly, and suddenly, Dick could feel his hands clenching into his Nightwing uniform, gripping as much as they could.

“I know, Tim. I know. It's okay, you're safe,” Dick murmured, holding onto him tightly.

Barbara gently eased the tazer out of Tim's hand, and he clutched more tightly with the freed up hand. 

Dick could feel him shaking violently, skinny, cold to the touch. He'd always been small, of course, but he felt smaller than ever, too easily able to be destroyed, harmed. 

Abruptly, Tim's legs collapsed, and Dick lifted him, holding him close. “Batgirl, we need to make sure Batman's all right--”

“I'll keep you in radio contact. Take Tim to the batmobile,” Barbara said, and there was obvious pain for Tim in her voice, but still a business-like tone to it. She knew that lives depended on what they did, and she was able to keep her head in a time of emotional turmoil.

Dick held Tim tighter, the younger's head tucked against his shoulder. “Okay.”

The rest of the night was distant to Dick, outside of Tim himself. They sat in the Batmobile, Tim curled on Dick's lap, like he had never been, like they would never have done even at the youngest age that Dick had known him as Robin.

Tim refused to fall asleep or anything of the like. He just kept looking up at him, kept blearily peering at him and touching his face rather hesitantly.

“I'm here, Tim. It's real. You're safe,” Dick reassured him, wanting to get him out of the suit and fix his hair and all that, but that would be more for his own comfort than Tim's at this point, and he knew it would be selfish. Tim didn't nuzzle up against him or some other affectionate move; he didn't really expect him to. He just sort of clung, hands still gripping Dick's suit like he would disappear if he didn't keep a hold on him.

Barbara returned, a dark expression on her face. Before Dick could ask, she said, rather solemnly, “The Joker's dead.”

Dick took this in calmly, not asking who caused it. “And Batman?”

“He's alive. But... he's left. He wants to be alone; he's headed for somewhere else, I don't know where.” Barbara slid into the driver's seat.

Dick could feel his anger mounting. “Tim needs him.”

“You don't have to tell me that,” Barbara sighed, looking over at Tim with sad eyes. She put the car in reverse, and got out of the old parking area. Tim let out a noise, sounding startled, but Dick was quick to hold him tighter, make him feel more secure.

There was a big difference between leather straps and his big brother's arms, or so he hoped.

Tim was not okay, not even remotely okay. 

Alfred looked like tragedy had come and given him a handshake. He obviously was in great emotional turmoil, but as always, kept a stiff upper lip to help Tim. He was the one who looked over his injuries, pained expressions crossing his face as he examined Tim's naked body.

“This is more than I can fix,” he said softly, sounding like he was speaking around a lump in his throat.

Tim was mercifully putting up with being naked, as long as he had a grip on Dick's arm. Like it was a promise that nothing bad could happen, as long as he kept contact with Dick.

Dick wanted to curse Bruce, wanted to yell at him, how dare he abandon his own son when he was like this. But that would not help Tim, not at all.

Barbara gently helped clean him up, and Tim didn't fight her even when she delicately cleaned his nether regions, which were a mess. He didn't even tense up at that, a worrying lack of reaction given what Dick had seen. But then, perhaps he knew it was Barbara, not anyone who would hurt him, and that was a good sign, right?

He clung to Dick like he was a lifeline after Alfred did what he could to fix things up, patched him up and said that his other scars and injuries would require more advanced therapy. He was dressed up in sweats, good, soft sweats, and felt like a small child curled up against his elder brother as they sat in the batcave on the cot that, ironically, Tim had often occupied in between far-too-long cram sessions of case work. The kid didn't know how to relax then; it seemed he had trouble now too.

Barbara brought him a juice box, of all things, but it seemed to be the right choice. He slowly sipped at the straw, a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

They'd managed to put his hip back in the socket, which was good, as much as Tim had let out a pained grunt and dug his nails into Dick's arm. He seemed to recognize who they were, and that the pain was not a punishment.

That was good. It was good, and it was a sign that he was still reachable.

Barbara sat on the other side of him, and gently took his hand in hers. Dick was relieved to see him clench it back, to see him welcome her touch. 

And where was Bruce? How could he not be here?

Dick frowned to himself, but simply held Tim tighter. If Bruce wasn't going to do it, he had to be here for Tim. Tim needed him now more than ever.

The kid was fourteen, almost fifteen—a young age, too young to be dealing with shit like this. No one really should have to deal with this, but Tim felt especially like the wrong person. Like it wasn't fair to see him be hurt so badly.

Tim took about two hours to fall asleep; Dick wondered how much he'd slept under Joker's 'care.' He decided not to ponder it too long.

The next few days were not easy. For one thing, Tim could not be left alone. He'd started freaking out when Dick had left while he was sleeping to go to the bathroom—not screaming his head off, but hyperventilating, whimpering, until Barbara got to his side and held him tightly, promising that Dick would be right back.

He trusted Babs as much as Dick, and Alfred was able to take their place as well—but it was still only the three of them trying to take care of Tim, a boy with a severe psychiatric injury. They didn't dare call anyone else in, not just for the sake of pride or something like that; instead, they were quite sure Tim needed a small amount of exposure to people, and they were definitely the people he trusted most. 

It was a long few days, feeding Tim, making sure he stayed hydrated, went to the bathroom—something they had to remind him to do, as they discovered when he simply soaked himself in bed. They helped him shower, they got the dye out of his hair (thank god it was something very removable), and they kept him bundled and warm and safe but definitely not trapped.

Babs even sang to him. She had a decent voice, and she sang him various children's songs.

Tim still didn't speak, didn't communicate beyond sounds. They didn't completely understand why; his tongue was definitely intact, a relieved Alfred had told them; his suggestion was that Tim was simply tortured out of using words, that words had only brought him pain in his trial and so he had banished them. It was a common reaction to trauma, too—trauma-induced mutism, or selective mutism. He probably was physically capable of speaking, but psychologically...not really.

Bruce still didn't show up.

And Dick hated him for it.

Tim's first word since the whole thing occurred a week and a half into his recovery.

“Please,” he'd said softly, word tumbling out and trembling. He'd been reaching for Dick as he stood to leave, intending to leave Alfred in charge of Tim.

Dick sat down, certainly unable to deny Tim in these circumstances. “Hey, baby bird. Hey. It's all right, I'm still here.”

Tim had grabbed on to his arm tightly, and pull his blanket up to about his ears. His big blue eyes turned up towards Dick, and there was that spark of Tim there that Dick knew, a tiny glimmer that suggested Tim was definitely still in there.

He'd smiled, despite himself, and used his other hand to gently stroke Tim's hair. “Hey, baby bird...”

He'd caught the look that flashed through Tim's eyes—a pleased smile, a relieved look, even if his mouth certainly didn't move accordingly. It made him want to both cry and laugh at the same time, and he leaned over to gently kiss the top of Tim's head. 

“Hey, Tim. It's okay. You're going to be okay.”

They had finally brought him upstairs after that. There had been concerns about moving him, concerns about upsetting him as he seemed quite all right to remain in the batcave—and he did move uneasily throughout the house, always within grabbing distance of Barbara, Dick, or Alfred. 

He had a night terror when he slept in his own bed for the first time, Babs laying alongside and swift to calm his terrified screaming. She held him tightly, let him sob into her shoulder until he calmed down and fell back asleep again.

He slept ten and twelve hours at a time. It was a bit of a relief for him to be out half the day, but they didn't dare leave him alone either way. Babs would work on various projects on her laptop, even having told Dick with a sort of grim smile that she'd taken up poetry. Bad poetry, she explained, but she had too much time on her hands and spilling words on a page in something that resembled order was something to keep her mind distracted.

Dick had taken up a new hobby too—crocheting, of all things. He'd found Mrs. Wayne's old set one day, along with knitting and how-to books. He wasn't sure if the needles would scare Tim, but better safe than sorry, and his hands needed to do something besides polish wing-dings, which were all shining like mirrors. So, project after project in his fast hands.

Currently, Tim was wearing a crocheted hat, one that seemed to bring him comfort, a thick, soft blue yarn that made Dick think of those cute hats that girls wore in the Fall. Of course, the coloring was a little less than a fashionable shade, if he remembered correctly, because the yarn was all from Mrs. Wayne's collection.

Tim was sitting at the table and eating now, two weeks in. He'd occasionally ask for things, a nervous tremble to his voice as he said, “Orange juice, please.” He always ducked his head a little, like he expected something bad to happen for asking.

And Bruce was still not back. Dick had given up on his being there for his son, had basically relegated him to the back of his mind except when he was up late and watching Tim's face crease in fear and pain as he dreamt. Not even the rhythmic hook of his crocheting could keep him from furious thoughts then, from thinking of how Bruce had never deserved Tim.

By midway through the third week, Tim was able to undergo the meager treatment they had for his bleached skin. Skin was not meant to be bleached, and especially not in the way his had been. There was a reason the main ingredient in most skin bleaching treatments were banned in places like Europe; there was a reason most skin bleaching was recommended only for spot use, small dark spots to even skin tone.

Tim had been bleached from head to toe, and it damaged his skin badly. He was burned, scar tissues and other imperfections all over. The best they could do was rub heavy-duty lotions into his skin, stuff that would help it heal and repair itself—to an extent. Presumably, as his skin healed on its own, the color would come back; Dick had done enough research to know this.

He'd stripped (and gotten a proper shower, not a ten second, anxiety-riddled stand under running water), and managed to stay still for them to apply it. 

Dealing with the... 'smile' scars would have to be done later. Dick didn't imagine Tim liked seeing that in the mirror, but surgery would require anesthetic, and he knew Tim was certainly not ready. 

They'd finally turned on the TV for Tim after the end of the third week—and that had ended in disaster.

“Speculation of the Joker's death remain unconfirmed--”

Joker's face, grinning on the screen.

Tim sharply inhaled, eyes doing that lifeless thing, and ran from the room, and they had to search the house for him. They found him fairly unresponsive in the large, old vent of his room, head tucked into his knees and fingers whiter than ever as they gripped his head.

No words for another week. No being left alone for a week. Many, many baby hats crocheted for a week.

But Tim was coming back to himself after that. He ate more, remembered to hydrate, go to the bathroom unprompted, shower. He even started, rather hesitantly, practicing his punches and kicks on a punching bag; his form was still excellent, even if his muscles were not what they were and his eyes kept flicking over anxiously to Dick.

Still, Dick had hope for Tim.

It was dark and late one night, however, when all the nightmares that Barbara, Dick, and Alfred had seemed to come true: Tim's bed was empty, and he was nowhere to be found.

The Bat Signal was in the sky.

And the reports coming in?

_The Joker has returned._


	2. Chapter 2

Dick's stomach was in knots. It was as agonizing as the first time Tim had completely disappeared, but with a new edge: there was no doubt in his mind something horrible was happening to him. He knew something horrible had already happened, and there was absolutely no chance he was doing something like taking a sabbatical.

There had always been the faintest hope in his mind that Tim was teaching them a lesson, or there was a non-nefarious reason he was missing for a month with the first disappearance.

He didn't have that now.

He and Barbara took off to where the Joker had been spotted, sure that this would be most likely to lead them to Tim. If not, frankly, Dick was either going to leave or Babs was, to look for Tim. Tim came first, in his mind, and probably Barbara's too.

Tim. Probably scared out of his mind. Probably freaking out somewhere.

Maybe in the hands of Joker himself. _Again._

They had failed him, and not for the first time.

The scene was chaos. Dead bodies were strewn outside the blown out house, all gang bangers. In the meantime, chilling laughter boomed from the house, and it didn't sound like a recording.

A chill went up Dick's spine.

Barbara seemed shocked, but pressed forward.

The inside of the house was dirty, messed up, and in the kitchen type area (though this was not a normal house, never had been for the past fifty years at least, instead a gang meetup point for Black Mask) there he was.

White skin. Green hair. Yellow-red eyes.

And in Tim's pajamas.

Joker himself sat there, grinning and saying, “Hello, Batboy, Batgirl. What brings you here?”

“I saw you die,” Barbara said, staring at him. “You are dead!”

“Hm, may wanna rewind and check, huh? Oh, that's right, Brucey gutted all the security tapes and my precious footage, didn't he? Oh well!” He hopped down from the counter he'd been sitting on.

“Where's Tim?” Dick practically roared, the sight of Tim's pajamas, a snug fit but had always been oversized on Tim, a present from Dick that had been poorly sized but highly valued to Tim, putting rage into his heart. He wanted to rip Joker's heart out of his chest.

Joker cackled. “I might tell you, but it would ruin the punchline! What's the point of having a joke if people guess the ending?”

The idea of Tim, naked and helpless somewhere, possibly even dead, made Nightwing see red, and he charged Joker.

But the Joker was stronger than he appeared, and shockingly, better at fighting than Dick remembered him being as well. He caught Nightwing's attack like he knew exactly what the other was about to do, and flipped him onto his back—or he would have been on his back, had he not cracked into the counter instead.

Barbara came at him next, more cautiously than Dick, he thought, as he looked up with a dizzying wave of pain through his body. 

The Joker had done something, changed somehow—he countered her strike easily, and then sent her flying; she managed to flip and land in a crouched position.

He cackled loudly, saying, “Bet you Bat Brats didn't expect a revisit, hm? Well, you know what I was thinking? It might be time to expand the Joker family—poor Jay was all sorts of lonely, always crying for his precious brother and sister...Though, technically Babs here isn't a sibling--”

A batarang came whirring through the air, and Joker dodged it, turning to see it stick out of the cabinet behind him. He laughed. “Oh! Definitely signs of abuse here too! Throwing things, acting violent—you may need a new home, away from Daddy Bats, just like Junior!”

Dick went for Joker, recovered enough to get in a hit—but jolts of electricity surged through him when Joker got a hand on him.

He fell, feeling like he'd been kicked in the chest—but all over.

Joker laughed, wiggling his fingers and sing-songing something about electricity. “Always works, doesn't it?”

“Not going to work for long, clown!” Barbara shouted, and she decked him—he hadn't been looking, like he'd been too involved in watching Dick convulse or whatever. The Joker stumbled back, and blood flecked his chin.

He laughed loudly, like he knew a joke they didn't. He touched the blood on his chin, and looked at it with amusement. “Oh, good job, Babs! Good job! You're teaching me a good lesson! Just like you taught Tim how to write his own code, hm?”

Barbara was obviously trying very hard not to let Joker get to her, not to let him get her blinded by rage. She drew another batarang, snapping, “You like electricity, clown? You're about to find out how fun it is!”

Dick was up too, and drew a similar wing-ding; if Babs missed, he would dose up the clown with a voltage that would hopefully knock him out.

“Oh, I'm afraid you two aren't too good at comedy; you see, using the same joke as the person used on you...hm, not very clever, not at all. You would be booed off the stage!” Joker laughed loudly, and as Barbara threw the batarang at him, it crackling with electricity, he expertly dodged, laughing like a hyena the whole time.

Dick's missed too. Since when was the Joker so damn good? It wasn't even that he was technically proficient, though this Joker clearly was. Not at their level, though.

It was that he _knew_ what they were going to do, that he knew how to counter it. 

It made Dick's blood boil, wondering how many reams of information the Joker had tortured out of Tim. If it was enough to fill whole volumes. 

In any case, Joker would pay for it in an equal amount of blood, if Dick had anything to say about it.

He lunged for Joker, this time using a wing-ding like a knife—not a common move for him. He tended to avoid such violent approaches.

This time, he caught the Joker in the thigh, and the man screamed, the thing digging in and blood already staining his—Tim's—pajamas. But then, he shrieked with laughter, as if this was the funniest thing in the world, a humor that Dick simply couldn't see.

“Oh, oh, big bird, you've really done it now, haven't you? It's delicious, the irony is killing me as much as you're trying to—ha!” The Joker twisted free, blood still trickling down his pants leg and staining it worse.

He moved fairly well for such pain, and Dick was certain he didn't strike a major vein or artery. He kind of wished he had, wanted the Joker to bleed out and be out of their lives forever.

“Where is Tim?” he demanded, raising the bloody wing-ding again.

Barbara tackled the Joker at that point, as he was hooting with laughter at Dick.

She pressed a batarang against his throat, though he still laughed. “I'm only going to ask you once, clown. Where. Is. _Tim_?”

The Joker cackled, saying, “Oh, Babsy, we both know you're not going to kill me, and frankly, I don't care if you hurt me—it's actually the funniest thing you've done all night, and you dress up as a bat lady!”

Barbara seemed like she was nearly growling, as the sharp edge nicked the Joker's throat and sent a sluggish pool of blood up from the cut. “You think I won't? Maybe I wouldn't have before Tim, but now...”

But the Joker was cracking up, like this was the funniest thing in the world. “Do it, do it!” he cackled, grinning that sick grin, “Please, I encourage it! It would be _the_ final joke!”

Dick had made it over by then, and grabbed Joker's hair, yanking his head back to look directly into his eyes. He saw madness there, a maniacal gleam that had always unsettled his stomach. “Joker. I'm sure we can find something worse than death for you, if you don't tell us where Tim is right now.”

Again, this was greeted as a rich joke by Joker. He was laughing so hard he was practically crying. “Do it, do it! What'll it be? Maiming? Blinding? A lobotomy? Or perhaps _torture_?”

Something was horribly wrong here. Dick knew he should stop and listen, figure it out, but the clown was twisted and Tim was in danger, and his heart was beating too fast in his chest. He was letting the panic take over, he realized, and panicking was the worst thing to do in an emergency like this.

Barbara looked just about ready to slit Joker's throat, but obviously the main thing staying her hand was that they wouldn't know where Tim was. They wouldn't be able to find him, and he might not be able to get out by himself, and god knew they didn't want another repeat of looking for him for days, weeks, without knowing if he was okay.

“Did you kill Tim?” Dick demanded, a lead weight settling in his stomach. If the Joker had...he didn't know what he'd do. He didn't know how he'd react. He might kill, he might shut down, he just had no idea.

“Oh, he's alive...roughed up, but alive for now,” The Joker said, a sick grin on his face. He seemed absolutely delighted with the emotions he was stirring up in Tim's family, the only family that Tim had. He sighed, and abruptly said, “Well, this was fun, but I'm afraid I have an appointment to keep, and a little boy who will be very disappointed otherwise!”

Barbara had started to say something, something angry—but white hot pain exploded as the Joker managed to touch both of them, some sort of shock going through them. At least, that was what Dick assumed happened when he came out of it and found Barbara gasping for breath just like him.

The Joker was gone, entirely disappeared and the littered bodies and debris the only sign he had been here.

Dick growled, the sound making painful waves in his sore chest. He stood, Barbara quickly following suit. “We have to find Tim--”

“I know.”

They had already set out, ice in veins and the image of the battered, broken Tim they'd last found plastered across their minds. Dick and Barbara didn't speak, looking around the house for signs of Tim and fanning out.

It took two hours, two agonizing hours—and then they found him.

Tim, lying on the ground, curled tightly into a fetal position—and he was back in his pajamas, the blood clear on the fabric.

Barbara had gathered him into her arms before Dick could even get there, saying, “Tim, Tim, answer me, it's Babs, you're safe now, I promise.”

Tim let out the smallest sound, and his blue eyes looked towards Barbara in confusion. He winced, and then let out a pained moan. 

Dick's blood seemed to bubble with rage, but he pushed it aside. Yes, Tim was hurt, but getting angry wasn't going to help him. He leaned down, saying, “I'll carry him. Let's take him back to the Cave.”

Barbara seemed reluctant to let go of Tim, as if he might disappear again if she didn't keep a grip, but she let him.

He was small, and felt more fragile and trembling than ever in Dick's arms. He had that glassy look coming over his eyes once again, but one of his white hands gripped the front of Nightwing's uniform.

The kid was breathing rather slowly, rather like he was falling asleep or wishing he was asleep.

Dick knew, with a twinge of his heart, that Tim might very well be checking out, not unlike other times. He stared blankly, and Dick was torn between snapping him out of it and allowing him to escape from the pain and fear temporarily.

They got back into the batmobile, and again, Barbara drove, a steady set of hands on the wheel. She was always able to get into this zone when she drove, no matter how shaken up. Dick appreciated it now more than ever.

He was too busy trying to keep Tim together to contemplate much what had happened. He could feel the boy shaking in his lap, eyes staring ahead, and he cursed whatever the Joker had done to him. He cursed that the Joker was clearly able to get into the house—the manor.

How on earth had he done—Dick froze. If he had tortured Tim for any and all information...

He swallowed that down for now. They'd just had contact from Alfred, and nothing seemed to be out of place, so he hoped to god that the Joker's sick and demented mind didn't turn to the most parental figure in their lives.

Barbara got them into the batcave. From there, it looked like the composure she'd held on to to drive was cracking, her hands clenching and unclenching, her eyes seeming to moisten up a bit—but still hard with anger.

Dick climbed out with Tim, and laid him on the medical table.

He'd just started to say, “Babs, I need you to--” when Tim did something that startled him.

He bolted off the table. Just took off, running like he'd been threatened with them cutting off an arm or something.

Babs reacted first, or at least was closest, because she swiftly stood in front of Tim. “Tim--” she was clearly startled when he swung at her, fist well made and the punch well executed as she managed to sidestep it. He went in for a kick next, and Dick could see the blood on his leg spreading as he attempted to fight her.

“Tim! Stop, we're not going to hurt you!” Dick was somewhat desperate to get Tim to stop fighting, because Tim would hurt himself, because if Tim didn't feel safe here he didn't feel safe _anywhere_ , because seeing him strike out against loved ones was painful in more ways than one.

Tim was still silent, as Dick ran up. Barbara could probably take Tim down in a fight, having had more years experience and given Tim's reliance on his bo staff, which was currently absent, but the problem was—she didn't want to hurt him. And apparently, Tim did want to hurt her, as he nailed her solar plexus with a well-placed kick.

As she collapsed, Dick's heart thudded in his chest. Such a move could _kill_ , and Tim knew that—old Tim did, for sure. But Barbara's chest rose and fell, even if a bit jerkily, and she gasped, “Get Tim! Stop him!”

Tim was racing along the dimly lit ledges, out of the general batcave area and into the darkness. He was not being careful, that much was clear, nor was he planning very well—unless, of course, he was heading for a secret exit.

Dick cursed as he chased after him. “Tim! Please, I swear we're not trying to hurt you! Snap out of it!”

He could hear the way Tim's bare feet slipped on the rocks, the way he kept gasping and readjusting so he didn't plummet to his death. Dick's boots were made to grip, and so he had no such issues, but it didn't stop his heart from seeming to seize every time that Tim made that sharp intake of air that meant he'd lost his footing.

He had night vision built into his mask—Tim did not. As they pushed further and further into the darkness, the frightening idea that Tim was relying mostly on memory and touch was there in Dick's mind, the idea that Tim was so desperate to get away that not only would he risk killing Barbara, but he would risk his own life, a nasty death at that, to do it.

“Tim...Tim, talk to me, please. I know it's not all right, I know you're not all right right now, but I can help you, and I would never hurt you, okay? Just, stop running,” and then, there was no more slap of bare feet on wet stone; but Dick instantly realized why—they were at the 'back'--the artificially closed off area of the cave. And there were rungs up the wall, large metal ones that looked vaguely like giant staples.

And Tim was feeling for them, on his hands and knees and desperately trying to find them, knowing they were there, clearly, but having no sight whatsoever.

Dick caught up, and he could see Tim stiffen, able to sense that he was very close. Damn Batman's blindfold training. 

He caught Tim's arms first, and this led to a rather vicious kick in the knee; had he not been still wearing the fairly protective knee armor in the Nightwing suit, he was sure it would have painfully displaced it. “Tim, stop it! I'm your brother! I'm trying to help you!”

Tim let out a gasp, an utterly terror-fueled desperation clear in as he tried so hard to twist free.

Dick hated it, but he had to put him in an immobilizing hold—because not only could he seriously hurt Dick, which he was willing to put up with, honestly, but if he got away from Dick, he could seriously hurt himself.

He had Tim pinned, completely unable to move, arms stuck, legs useless, body pinned against the stone.

He could feel Tim struggle, not unlike a fish on land, breathing hard, until finally Dick realized he was crying, crying fairly hard, but silently.

His heart felt like it would break—and at the same time, anger threatened to burn it up. He wanted the Joker dead for this—for real this time. 

“Hey, hey...Timmy, it's okay. It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you, I swear. You're okay, baby bird...”

It didn't stop the shuddering gasps coming from Tim, nor did it change his ineffective struggling.

Barbara caught up to them then. She had a syringe, and Dick hoped to god that Tim didn't see it, but he did, and then he began to sob and scream in earnest, somehow managing to put more effort into getting free and probably hurting himself in the process.

“Just do it, Babs,” Dick said through his teeth; it would have been a sigh had it not been for the required concentration and effort to keep Tim pinned.

The needle went in easily to his neck.

Tim was out within seconds, thank god. Dick sighed, lifting his limp body, and he could feel Barbara's sad, frustrated gaze on him as he made his way back through the cave.

They laid Tim on the table again, and it was clear he had reopened wounds.

What they saw when they took off his pajamas, however, had Dick seeing red.

Very similar injuries to the Joker's. He'd had two hours to do this, of course he could copy his wounds onto Tim. The small neck wound, the large (and now larger) thigh wound, and so on.

And a new bruise forming from being slammed against the ground. Dick winced at that.

“I fucking hate that bastard,” Dick said, the words not feeling strong enough at all.

But Barbara had a contemplative look on her face. She was eyeing Tim's wounds rather critically, even as Alfred cleaned and sewed them up.

“Dick...How exactly did he get such a similar cut to a batarang—or a wing-ding?”

Dick shrugged. “You can cut with a lot of things, Barbara. All that matters is that Tim is okay and we get rid of this bastard.”

Barbara shook her head. “It—the cut on his neck. It's identical.”

Dick frowned, eyeing the cut that Alfred hadn't treated yet. It did look eerily the same. A dread rose at the back of his mind, but he refused to acknowledge it. “Maybe...maybe the Joker was just very precise and--”

“Dick. He couldn't have even seen his own neck, presumably,” Barbara said, and her voice held clear pain in it, a _you have to face this, Dick_ sort of tone to it.

“He could have taken a picture of it. He could have used a mirror. He could have had someone else do it,” Dick rattled off, “I mean, hell, he could have a cell phone for all we know.”

“Dick. I think you know something else is going on here,” Barbara said, tone firm yet somewhat gentle. She looked down at Tim, who lay there almost peacefully, though there was a clear crease between his eyebrows. A sort of distress behind his eyelids.

Dick didn't want to know that something else was going on. He just wanted Tim safe, he didn't want to think that Tim could be a _danger_ , and what if there was nothing they could do to fix him?

“No. What you're suggesting is too...fantastical. There has to be another explanation.”

“I saw the Joker die. There is no doubt in my mind that the Joker we just dealt with is--”

Dick cut Barbara off. “He can't be! That's impossible, Babs, you know it is! How the hell would the Joker even get technology or magic or whatever like that? How would he--”

“The same way any psycho in Gotham does: friends or easily bullied acquaintances.” Barbara was gently stroking Tim's wrist. “We need to figure out what he did to him, how he managed to pull this off.”

“It's not--”

“Dick. You need to face this.”

Dick was silent.

“Tim, even if it is completely unwillingly, is the Joker.”

Dick had no response to that. He just stared at Tim. His little brother. The one he'd sworn to protect, to never let what happened to _Jason_ happen to him.

He'd failed. He'd failed again. 

Tim had been warped beyond what any person should have to endure, and it was his fault for not being there.

It was his fault for letting another Jason happen.

No wonder Bruce was giving up on them.

It took several hours of testing to know for sure, all the while Tim kept knocked out. The clear bag of fluids was hooked up through IV, and Tim did little more than breathe softly, the sleep breath the only calm thing in the tense cave, and the boy just lay there, looking helpless and small and fragile.

It took a lot of work, but Barbara was able to find the evidence: trace Joker DNA, all about the brain stem. A further scan showed what they all dreaded:

A mass of some kind, wrapped around the brain stem.

Dick could have killed in that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! It's a little shorter than the first chapter, but I felt it was long enough. I hope people liked it! I do seem to love putting Tim through hell. I just realized he's probably like, my favorite Bat-character at this point, lol.
> 
> As for the mass...it's a surprise what kind it is. I found the 'technology' used in the Batman Beyond movie to be rather laughable myself, so it is definitely different, to be clear. 
> 
> And poor, poor Tim. He's gonna need so much therapy if he survives. Also, I do hope I'm portraying Barbara okay. I'm not entirely clear on her characterization in YJ, to be honest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have to find out what is causing this--or Tim will be lost to them forever.

Tim came awake.

It was no use keeping him sedated or anesthetized. It would be worse for him in the long run, even if he turned into the Joker while with them. Dick wouldn't do that to Tim—even if he was sort of the Joker. But not really, not ever. Just...sick. Harmed by The Joker.

Tim slowly blinked open his eyes—and Dick's stomach twisted as he let out a low, fearful moan, pulling against the cuffs that kept him on the bed.

Dick was quick to be there, hoping he could help—but the instant his hand landed on Tim's shoulder, Tim's face twisted up in fear, and he turned away, a sort of choked sob immediately coming out of his throat.

No words.

Alfred was quick to take over, shooing Dick. He gently cupped Tim's face, a thing he very rarely did at all, and he said, soothingly, “It's all right, Master Tim. I will not let anything bad happen to you—I would never. You know that I care for you.”

Tim's blue eyes were watering, but he stared up at Alfred like he was the Savior—the one person who could help him, hold him together and not hurt him. His lips moved, like he was trying to respond, but instead he just cried harder, tears seemingly of relief as well.

Dick swallowed the bad taste in his mouth, the sadness and pain, and said to Barbara, “Do we know what it is yet? How to remove it?”

Barbara turned to him, sighing. “It's complex. I'd describe it as...techno-sorcery, I suppose. We've encountered it before, from sources like Klarion—but it wasn't him. Even if we could cut it out, which we can't, it's far too intertwined, the magic would interfere. I don't know much about it on the magic side, but it's--” she stopped to swallow, sort of thickly, like it was painful, “it's partly meshed with Tim's brain stem. We aren't getting this out traditionally, that's for sure.”

Dick's teeth clenched. He wanted to make Joker suffer—but he was already dead. Already gone scot-free. Well, it felt scot-free compared to what Dick would have liked to do to him. “Okay, if not traditionally, how?”

Barbara had to know. She had to have some way of removing it, because how else could Tim function and live?

She pursed her lips. “It's beyond what I know. We have to call in someone who knows about...magic.” She wasn't the strongest believer in magic, Dick knew that. None of them _really_ were, always having doubts that there was a reasonable scientific explanation. Of course, to them, the supernatural could fit right in to reality—but just hand wave sort of 'it's magic' did not sit right with them.

They weren't outright disbelievers. Just the kind of people who wanted to know how it worked rather than blindly trust.

“Okay. We're calling Z,” Dick said immediately, knowing she was someone they could trust.

Barbara nodded. There was not even a flicker of doubt. “Call her. Keep it quiet if you can—we don't want anyone trying to interfere.”

Dick nodded. The Bats often operated outside of what the rest of the superhero community would call normal. If the majority knew their secrets, they would be in trouble. Also, more importantly, they just did things differently. They would want to take Tim to a facility or something, some 'proper' way of doing things that they were sure would work.

As pressed the button on his communicator, he glanced to Tim, and hoped to god they'd done this right so far.

“Hey, Nightwing! How's Robin? All we've heard is that you found him and he's alive—and no one's heard from Batman at all, not even Superman.” Zatanna sounded very concerned, a common note when talking to him of late—the past couple months or so for sure.

“Hi, Z,” Dick sighed, not in a way that suggested he was annoyed by her, but rather that conveyed whatever he was about to say was heavy. “Robin's...he's alive. But he's not all right. He was severely tortured, and we've been helping him recover...but there's some very bad magic going on here. It's something we can't handle ourselves, and--”

“I'm coming. You can give a full explanation when I get there, okay?” Zatanna was probably already heading for a Zeta tube. There was indeed one going directly to the Batcave—but it required being already identified as someone okay to be transported, a much smaller list than the whole league and such.

Zatanna was on that list.

Dick said, “Thank you, Zatanna. I don't know who else we could ask.”

He got a sympathetic noise of affirmation, and then—the zeta tube. Zatanna was standing there in costume, a frown on her face, but her blue eyes softened quite a bit when she saw Dick. They weren't in costume, neither him nor Barbara, but Zatanna was trusted enough to know their identities.

He probably looked like shit. His theory was confirmed when she hugged him, tightly, an extra squeeze there. He hugged her back—she was an amazing friend, and he felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders just with her presence.

She let him go, and turned to Tim. He could see the shock on her face, like she might even hurl—but she admirably tamped it down, and took in a deep breath through her nose. She came closer, saying, “Tim?”

Tim's eyes took her in—no apparent fear. Maybe a little apprehension. Alfred was still close. There was _maybe_ recognition there.

No words in response.

She looked to Dick, a disturbed frown on her face. “He's practically radiating magic,” she said, and placed a gentle hand on his head, and quickly dipped down towards the juncture of the back of his neck and head.

He let out a frightened sort of huff, and Dick had to fight not to step in and try to comfort him—he would only make it worse.

Alfred smoothed down his hair, murmuring something, one of those secret things that he seemed to have between all of them. Alfred always knew how to calm them down. 

Zatanna was clearly frowning deeply—Dick could tell from her posture. It was very bad.

She delicately removed her hand, and stepped back, coming to Dick's side. “It's a higher-level form of magic—it's not going to be something easy to remove, especially without consequences. Whoever...the Joker clearly knew what this was going to do.”

It was easy to put two and two together with the slasher grin on Tim's face.

Dick felt like his heart had fallen. He turned to Barbara, and he could see the clear pain in her expression. 

She said, to Zatanna, “Who do you think did this? Any way of knowing whose magic it is?”

Zatanna frowned more softly now. “Dick...this is very high level. I'm good, yes, but...I need time, at the least. I'll probably need a lot of things, frankly. Etom raeppa!” A big, dusty looking book appeared in front of Zatanna, and she began flipping through it.

Tim, meanwhile, curled his fingers uselessly as he pulled at his restraints a bit, as if the scent of the dust was enough to put him in a bad state. Of course, he was already in a bad state, but that didn't mean it couldn't be worsened.

Dick looked to Barbara. He could see in her eyes she was a bit frustrated it wasn't an instant fix, even as she understood why it wasn't. He could feel it too. Damn logic, he wanted it out. But it would hardly help to be mad at anyone here about it, so he just looked to Alfred. “What do you think we can do to help Tim realize we're not going to hurt him? We can't rely on just you to care for him—not because you can't, but because it's a whole hell of a lot to put on one person.”

“Language,” Alfred said softly. He looked down at Tim, and there was clear pain in his eyes, and he gently pushed back Tim's hair, despite the fact it wasn't very long. Tim's eyes focused on him, like Alfred was the one thing he could be sure of. “I...am not certain. This is not...something I have faced. He's clearly hurt, very deeply. I don't know how to fix it.”

Dick nodded. “I'm...I'm going to come over there, okay?” He came quietly, feeling strangely nervous. His hands were kind of trembling, as he reached out to Tim—and Tim let out a terrified moan, turning his head away and shutting his eyes.

Dick almost hesitated—was he doing this right?--but then he put his hand on Tim's hair, saying gently, soothingly, “It's okay, Babybird. It's okay. It's just me and I would never hurt you—I swear to god, I'm not going to hurt you.”

Tim's hair was sticking to his head from sweat. He felt warm, Dick realized, though he was clearly trembling. Tim's tortured blue eyes landed on his face, looking, searching desperately to understand. He let out a sort of grunt, and strained against the straps.

“Hey, hey, it's okay,” Dick said, still gently. “I know Babs and I hurt you. We didn't mean to. We didn't want to. It was...it was a trick. The Joker pulled another one over on us, and we didn't know it was you...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Babybird, I didn't—I never wanted to hurt you, ever, I'm sorry.”

Was he crying? He thought he might be, and his little brother's warm scalp just seemed to bring things more to reality—he'd literally attacked and tried to kill his little brother. Yes, he thought it was Joker, but that didn't change Tim's point of view—he didn't understand, but he'd been attacked by two of the people he trusted most.

He thought he could see Tim starting to cry too, but he wasn't certain as to why. He gently wiped the tears from Tim's face with his thumbs, saying, “It's okay, Tim. It's okay. We're going to protect you, I swear.”

He carefully, cautiously, unstrapped Tim, which made the boy curl up into a tight ball and continue to tremble. Dick gently rubbed a hand along his back, and Tim was still quite warm.

A bit too warm.

Dick quickly used on of their tools for instant temperature reading—it was a bit high. About 101.4 Fahrenheit. No, that was definitely too high. His eyes widened, and he said, to Barbara and Alfred, “He's got a fever—I think he's sick.”

And he did not want Tim to be sick on top of everything, but he hadn't been able to fix or control anything else these past months so why would he be able to do this? He stroked back Tim's hair from his forehead, and got a small whine in response, as Tim tucked his head against his chest.

Barbara was by his side in an instant, and Alfred was checking Tim for other signs of sickness.

It made Dick mad, because Tim may have been sick before that, and they couldn't tell, because of course being dazed, confused, nonverbal, and reticent, as well as depressed or withdrawn, was fairly normal for him. Not all the time, but he often had those things going on as a result of the torture he'd been through.

He wanted to punch the cave wall, or preferably Joker, but he needed to be there for Tim. Rage would do no good—it wasn't as though he could punch time and change it. Or punch the Joker out of Tim.

Tim shivered, and he could see the delirious way he looked at them, eyes sort of darting a bit. Barbara got a blanket—he'd had one before, but it was more a thin hospital sort of blanket, as a thick comforter might be a bit much in most circumstances.

She positively shrouded him in the blanket, for now—his temperature was high, but he wasn't quite bathe-him-in-ice high—and a blanket would comfort him. He buried his face in it, seeming to take in the scent and softness and just let out a sort of soft sound of relief.

Zatanna was watching this all with concern. “It may be a side effect. Of the magic used, I mean. It was acitivated, wasn't it? It...transformed him. Right?”

Dick was having a hard time answering, so he just nodded. He could see Tim lick dry, chapped lips, and he swiftly got a bottle of water—they always had some on hand. Kind of a necessary thing, water. He unscrewed the cap, and pulled Tim to a sitting position, despite his feeble attempts to stay down. “It's okay, Babybird, it's just some water, I promise.” He pressed it to Tim's lips, and his little brother at first wouldn't drink it, but then he tasted the water, and thirst did the rest.

Zatanna continued. “It's only going to get worse the more he changes—this sort of magic, it's not a solid transformation—it's kind of...flickering. It's like comparing a solid state to a constantly morphing substance—no set state. He could switch at any time, in all honesty. It's like an extra, but partial, consciousness has been attached to his.”

Dick lowered his head, murmuring, “There's hope, right? We can do something?”

Zatanna answered, “Well...yes.” There was the rustle of old pages. “It looks like there is a technique to remove it. I've got to figure out how to pull it off, though—a lot of this refers to old ingredients that I just...I don't know how to procure them in this day and age, in all honesty. But I'm certain that I can consult someone for either replacements or a source for them.”

Normally, Dick might have made a joke about, 'What, does it require a dodo bird?' but now he certainly didn't feel like it—and if that was true, it would be horrific anyway. He could see Tim's cheeks were kind of flushed now, and he had essentially burrowed into the comforter, a sort of confused discomfort in his face—probably wondering why he felt so nasty, why he was in such pain, why his siblings (of sorts) had attacked him.

Why his world didn't make sense anymore—and hadn't for a while.

Dick said, through a tight jaw, “Whatever it takes, Z.”

He could easily sense Zatanna nodding, as she responded, “Of course. I'll get right to work.”

Tim would probably only get worse, Dick was sure. He probably had been getting worse gradually when he first changed—from those two hours lying out by himself to the time he'd spent strapped to the bed while they figured out what was going on. He felt like he was stupid for not noticing sooner.

When Alfred started to move away from the bed, Dick could Tim's hand feebly get free of the comforter and manage to grip Alfred's sleep, his eyes still squeezed shut. Alfred closed his hands over Tim's, murmuring to him reassuring things, including that he would stay, he wasn't leaving.

Dick moved away to help Zatanna, just as Barbara moved in to monitor Tim's temperature—and put her hands on his forehead, give him that comfort of touch. Maybe he would realize it was safe, that Babs was here to protect him.

Zatanna was flipping through the tome, as well as accessing what Dick would term the 'magician's internet.' It was, of course, very different from the internet in many ways, but it was essentially a network they could contact each other through. Dick sometimes wondered how much of history was influenced by this secret communication system—but then, it was an incredibly small number of people who could do magic, much less access the system or know about it.

He leaned in, and she handed him the tome, instructing him on the keywords to look for. He was to look for something about semi-phase-transformation, if he heard her right. Or, she offered a few old timey terms or from other languages as well, but that was the primary one he was to look for, as this skill was primarily in what they would term the English and/or British branch of magic (Celtic and Briton magic had bled over in the centuries of sharing a country).

Dick would have sped through the pages, being a fast reader and excellent at scanning for keywords—but he didn't dare miss it. He couldn't afford to, and the off chance that he would miss a strangely scrawled in word in some of the older or just handwritten pages was just too costly to allow.

They took a while going through her contacts and the tome. He found several pages, but upon closer examination from Zatanna, they were deemed not to be relevant or helpful in this case.

He wished it was a file—he could just use the search for a word or phrase function. Find. But no, he had to not only contend with paper, he had to contend with different spellings and translations and so on. Even just bad handwriting as well.

All the while, Babs and Alfred took care of Tim, as badly as Dick wanted to be there. 

By the time they'd found even slightly workable information, however, he could hear Barbara lifting Tim, the boy not making a sound of protest, but the slide of a body against sheets unmistakable. He turned to look, and Tim's flushed head lolled against the crook of Barbara's elbow. She was hurrying him to another spot, Dick realized a bit stupidly, a bit numbly, as Alfred finished filling a bathtub.

“Dick, get ice! Now!”

Dick abandoned the book, racing across the cave as icy fear pounded in his veins. Tim was too hot, too feverish—clearly it was getting worse fast.

They'd already gotten him in the tub by the time he got back. It was clearly cold, nearly frozen in temperature, and he thought he heard the slightest whine escape from Tim's lips, though his eyes were shut and he was limply lying in the tub, no attempt to get out or even keep his head up.

His skin felt strangely sizzling hot to dick, even though he knew realistically it could not be that hot at all. Tim looked...he looked like he was burning to death.

He piled the ice on him, and this time, he was sure he saw an uncomfortable wisp of a whine make it out through Tim's lips. He turned to Zatanna, snapping, “Do you have a cure?”

Zatanna was scrambling, practically ripping through her things. “A—a, yeah, a temporary fix, move!”

She was pressing a golden symbol to Tim's forehead next, a shape that made Dick think 'Celtic' but not much more beyond that. The sounds next were agonizing.

Tim screamed, a weak sound that belied great pain. He could not move against it, the ice packs alone enough to keep him down, the great fever inhibiting his ability to get up or get away—and Dick was sure he heard the sound of frying skin.

He wanted to drag Zatanna off, but damn it, he trusted her, he knew she wouldn't hurt Tim. He hoped to god he was right, his senses alight with frantic, agonizing fear.

It was over. A mark was left on Tim's forehead, a burn in the shape of the symbol. His blue eyes were looking about in confusion, and he shuddered violently, already trying to pick his way out of the icy bath.

Barbara was there, asking, “Tim? Answer me, are you okay? How do you feel?”

“C-c-c-c--” he could not get past the sound, it seemed, and Barbara quickly removed the ice packs, which prompted Dick to join in, lifting his brother out of the tub. He was in his underwear, and shaking violently, feeling strangely rubbery to the touch, chillingly cold skin. Tim seemed to curl in to Dick, but was most likely seeking his warmth.

Zatanna looked sad. “It'll only last five hours at best. It doesn't solve the problem—and too many times can make removing it more difficult. Plus...burns.”

Dick made his decision then. “Babs. Bruce needs to come home. Now. Do whatever it takes to get ahold of him.”

Barbara nodded, and Dick took Tim back to swaddle him in the comforter. A warm body next to his would help the most, but he thought Tim would freak out—and he could attempt this way first. Alfred was already slipping in instant heat packs and whatever would help return warmth to Tim's body.

Tim looked at him, both of them, in confusion. He tried to get out of the comforter, despite his chattering teeth.

“It's okay, Tim—you're safe. You're safe. No one's gonna hurt you,” Dick promised.

Tim shook his head, even as it seemed to list a bit. “H...h...”

“What? What is it?” This had to be a good sign—Tim had not even been speaking before, when they'd recovered him.

“Home,” Tim croaked, and the look in his eyes, the desperation to return to the past, nearly broke Dick's heart.

He hesitantly wrapped his arms around Tim-in-the-comforter, and when Tim didn't fight, seemed to almost squirm closer, he stayed there. The extra warmth would help, and if he was here, he would make sure Tim was safe.

And Bruce would answer for where he'd been—once Barbara tracked him down.

Dick wasn't really prepared, however, for where—or what—Bruce turned out to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just glad to update! It's harder when the chapters are longer. Hope you liked it. Happy New Year's!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who did the Joker work with, and is this mysterious partner a much bigger fish than the Joker himself?

Looking at the painful burn on Tim’s forehead set a new lump in Dick’s throat. He had been holding Tim in his comforter for about an hour before Bruce showed up.

In fact, in that time, Tim sank into what seemed to be a relatively peaceful sleep.

It felt like the temperature in the room changed as Bruce walked in, sank into a colder temperature. Dick could feel the hairs prickle up on the back of his neck as he looked over at Bruce.

Batman. He was in the costume. His face was set in a deep scowl which didn’t seem to change even a fraction as he looked over at Tim and Dick, never seeming to meet Dick’s eyes behind the white out lenses.

Dick pushed past his discomfort, saying, “Where were you?”

“Somewhere else,” Bruce replied flatly.

Dick felt like he would break his own teeth as he said, “No shit. What I mean is, where the fuck were you when your son needed you?”

It looked like Bruce’s gaze flicked down to Tim for a moment, and yet the dark look on his face never changed. “I was busy.”

“Oh, it had better have been damn important,” Dick growled back, and this startled Tim awake. His eyes blinked fast, blue and sharp in an instant as he took in the scene.

He seemed shocked to see Bruce. His mouth opened and closed a moment, but he couldn’t seem to get words out. 

Dick interpreted this as fear. “You’re scaring him—take off the cowl.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Batman said quietly. There was something less than cold in his tone, and even though Dick didn’t understand, it frightened him, on some level.

“...okay,” Dick managed, unsure why his anger was turning to a chilly feeling. There was something... _wrong_ with the Bruce in front of him, and it had him shifting a protective arm in front of Tim.

He thought he heard Tim giggle then, and his heart jumped in his chest.

In fact, as he turned to look at Tim, his little brother started giggling uncontrollably, hands pressed against his mouth and tears starting to stream from his eyes. Dick shifted him a bit, trying to get a look at his face, his body, the fear of the Joker returning too much, but when his forehead brushed him, he felt like he’d been scalded.

Zatanna was sprinting over, he realized, suddenly casting a spell—a _shield_ \--between Bruce and Tim. A purple sheen seemed to glow between them, and Tim slumped, seemingly almost gratefully exhausted. 

Tim buried his face into Dick’s chest before he got a good look at him again, but it didn’t feel like his forehead was that hot.

“He’s cursed,” Zatanna said, voice holding a note of something that Dick did not like the sound of. He turned to look at her, saying,

“What? What kind of curse?”

“Transformation,” Bruce said flatly, and Dick couldn’t see his eyes, but he felt their heavy gaze on him anyway. “I told Barbara I shouldn’t come back.”

A multitude of questions were exploding inside Dick’s head, and he didn’t know what to ask first. The principal one that came to mind was _how?_ , but _why didn’t you tell us you goddamn asshole_ came close to second.

“I don’t know who Joker was working with,” Zatanna said slowly, “but whoever it was, they are powerful. That curse is meant to interact with Tim’s—to activate what the Joker planted in him. But...only if Batman loses his focus.”

“What.” Dick couldn’t manage the energy to put the question in the word. 

“Proximity makes it worse,” Bruce said. He still had a tight scowl, and he elaborated, “I came back to the mansion without your knowledge. That was the night that Tim transformed, and I realized that I had been correct in assuming I couldn’t come back.”

He was using cold, clinical tones, and it made Dick bristle even as he understood why. He swallowed that feeling, looking at the purple-tinted Bruce he could see through the shield. “Where have you been all this time?”

“Meditating. Seeking something to remove the curse. Staying far, far away from my son,” Bruce said, and his voice caught very slightly on that.

It was then Dick realize he might not have been fair in being furious with Bruce. At the same time, though, he was absolutely furious. It was a hard thing to reconcile, and so he focused on pulling Tim in closer. He’d been taking care of him, up late at night and worn emotionally for weeks, and it was hard to let go of the anger at Bruce for not having been there at all.

Tim was breathing softly again, and his eyes were still blue, his skin that peachy-tinted white that it had come to as it healed, and his mouth wasn’t stretched in a grin, only the scars hinting at such a thing. His eyes were turned up at Dick, seeming to take him in.

It was almost unnerving how aware he seemed, in that moment. Like he understood exactly what was going on and could see into Dick’s thoughts.

“Do you know who placed the curse?” Zatanna asked Bruce.

Bruce was quiet a moment. He seemed almost reluctant to answer, until his gruff voice cut through the cave’s silence. “No. I’ve been searching the entire time I’ve been gone, and I still don’t know who he got this from.”  
This seemed to unnerve Zatanna, like she should have figured out by now who placed these curses. Like there was an ease to identifying another magic user normally. 

And Dick could understand that—at a certain level, there were only so many people. He knew most superheroes and high level martial artists alike on at least a cursory level. He knew of most people on a skill level similar to his and Batman’s. And with magic, it was even more of an interconnected field.

It wasn’t good if this kind of high level magic was being used by an unknown, or at least, that’s what Dick would assume. It wasn’t good that someone this powerful was interested in playing the Joker’s game, because it was highly unlikely at this point that the Joker forced this person.

Bruce said, in that way that was never a question, “I should go.”

“Bullshit—you need to stay so we can figure this out and save Tim—and you!” Dick said, almost instantly fed up with Bruce wanting to leave. It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand, it was that it was like trying to grab a small fish—it constantly slipped through your fingers. And after a long time, it only took one try to feel the frustration.

“I need to leave to protect Tim,” Bruce said, and for once, there was actually merit to his ‘I must be alone so no one is hurt by being associated with me’ argument. Dick knew Bruce, and he knew that being alone was not good for him. He knew it wasn’t what he needed or even what he really wanted. And it killed him to think he could be right, just this once.

Especially when Tim really needed his dad. When they all really needed him, and he needed them.

“How’s...how is he doing?” Bruce said softly, the silence having stretched on too long.

“Okay,” Dick said, voice equally soft, like he was afraid he might break something fragile. “He’s better than he was, sort of. His skin’s healing, and he spoke at some points. He’s...he’s alive.”

It felt like he should have something better than ‘he’s technically alive and aware!’ but he didn’t have a lot to offer. There were things that had been good, but since the Joker episode and the way this curse had reacted? They were pretty much gone.

Bruce said, very gently, almost like he was afraid, “Tim?”

It took Dick a stupid amount of time to realize Bruce was trying to address Tim directly. Tim, for his part, didn’t seem to be entirely unaware. His eyes were on Bruce, not a hint of question in them, none of the inquisitive eyes that were normally there. His body still shivered a bit, even though he seemed to pay it no mind.

It felt like a long eternity before Tim murmured what sounded more like him testing out how the letter M sounded than an actual word. It was like he was afraid to make a sound, like there was something very fragile that could be broken by him speaking.

“...dad,” he finally managed, “I---’m fine, dad.”

The words seemed to take a lot of work, and Dick had to wonder if Tim had suffered brain damage. He could tell Bruce was wondering the same thing, but what he said was, voice sounding fragile, “Okay, Tim. I’m going to have to go away, but they’re going to take good care of you.”

Tim gave a nod. He blinked. He said nothing more.

Dick had never heard him call Bruce dad before. He wondered why now, in some ways. In others, it was high time it happened, since he knew that Bruce was indeed technically his dad, having adopted him. He wondered how much Tim missed Bruce.

Bruce nodded back at him, and then turned to leave.

Dick found himself wanting to reach out, to force Bruce to stay and be safe with them and keep them safe. He couldn’t though, and he understood why.

“Stay safe,” he found himself saying, and Bruce nodded.

“You too.”

And Dick knew how seriously he’d missed them that he didn’t dismiss it with ‘what we do isn’t safe.’

Then the Batman was gone, and when he was far enough away, Zatanna dropped the shield.

–

Zatanna had said that this could mean that the Joker was, in fact, only the tip of the iceberg. She’d looked pale as she said it, like the idea nauseated her.

“What do you mean?” Dick asked, feeling his head start to ache.

“I mean, what if helping the Joker was only a part of a plan for something bigger? What if the Joker was part of someone else’s plan, rather than the other way around?” She seemed pale, continuing, “And if that’s the case, it’s someone who wanted the Bats out of the way for whatever’s coming. That’s the only way I can imagine someone so powerful working with the Joker.”

It turned Dick’s stomach to think that all this, all the suffering they’d been through, was only a small part of a bigger, darker plan.

“Who could it be?”

“I...don’t know,” Zatanna admitted, eyes troubled. “But I can figure it out. I’ll have to consult with others, and...I’ll have to leave, for now. I can renew the seal on Tim, but the best we can do for him right now is keep him far, far away from Batman.”

He could feel Tim twitch, burying his forehead into Dick’s shoulder as if to protect it. 

“You said you couldn’t do it too many times,” Dick said, suddenly worried about what it would mean.

Zatanna sighed, saying, “It’s more that it’ll be hard to remove, and might become permanent. I...don’t want that to happen, but a second time, in a few hours, will help him if and when I have to leave.”

“’If and when?’” Dick asked.

“I will likely have to leave, but the question is to where and in what way. This dimension or not and so on,” Zatanna said, and she shoved the tome she’d had at Dick.

“Keep looking for a solution. We can still save Tim,” she insisted.

Dick took the book, and, with Tim still sort of in his lap and a heavy heart, he flipped it open. He saw Zatanna go over to give an explanation to Barbara and Alfred, and then set up what Wally would probably call magic skype. 

Nothing seemed to jump out at Dick as he read, but he kept looking anyway. 

–

Hell was fearing losing everyone you cared about. And right now, Dick was half-way in hell and half-way out.

Zatanna had apologized, but she had to go, she’d try to be back in time to try to reapply the seal, but it was incredibly important that she meet with Dr. Fate and the others right now. She’d disappeared through a portal that glowed purple, and then Barbara reported that unusual events were taking place globally.

Tim had fallen asleep, watched over by Alfred.

“Landmarks are disappearing, but the pattern doesn’t make sense,” Batgirl had said, as the Justice League missives flashed in the corner.

The Statue of Liberty was gone, but not the Eiffel Tower. The Sphinx was gone, but not the Great Wall. A monument out in South Dakota called Dignity of Earth and Sky was gone, as was Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. Pomnik Chrystusa Króla was gone in Poland, and so was the Spring Temple Buddha in China. The Motherland Calls memorial was also gone in Russia.

There was a clear link between all of these missing monuments: all of them were human-shaped in some way. Why that mattered to the magic users who were disappearing them remained to be seen, however.

Dick had also been informed that some distraction tactics were also used with some other great heroes of Earth—Superman was off-planet, called to a distant world where only he could intervene, and Wonder Woman had gone back to Themyscira to aid her comrades with a seemingly secret problem.

The Flash hadn’t been seen for a while, though it was said he was going to look for Wally, that clues existed that he could be recovered from the speed force.

The Green Lanterns were all off Earth.

And Dr. Fate was engaged in a battle with only he knew what.

Hopefully, it was what was causing this, and not a separate issue, but no one knew for certain.

The battle for earth, the battle against whatever this was, would begin eventually, and Dick could only hope that they would win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this makes sense! It's been a long time since I updated this one, and I hope I haven't completely lost where I was going with this. I did have a new idea, and I hope y'all like it!

**Author's Note:**

> Expect an update, and maybe as long as this first one, but maybe a bit slowly, depending. If it's gonna be that long, it's gonna take time, after all. :) Hope y'all liked it! I may do more universe crossovers in the future. :)


End file.
